


sixty five days of static

by aosc



Category: Bleach
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 08:27:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3970984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/pseuds/aosc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is shock, which is absolute. Then there is an unknown. Or, Grimmjow dies, but not really. And he comes back, not quite the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sixty five days of static

**Author's Note:**

> fandom woke up post-624. so did i. quite graphic, not quite there, and diverting a bit from recent chapters' canon.

 

* * *

 

He is a trail of blood in the dunes, a swipe of defeat beneath the pale light of Hueco Mundo's midday. He remembers -- not much, a haze, intoxicated on epinephrine and pain and the feel of his ribs sawing into his guts, a stuck up bone pipe in his elbow shifting excruciatingly with the ticks of the tendons in his hand. _Not much left of that either_ , he notes, dimly. If he thinks with clarity, he knows he isn't a long way from carrying his lungs in his palm, his heart -- have fucking mercy. Blood slips between his fingertips. His hakama is long torn open and off, and loosely, his soul is figuratively and literally hanging onto him, Pantera strapped to him mid-thigh, somehow still there.

 

Grimmjow crawls another few feet, the never quite-sun drawing a haggard line in his neck, still attached to his spine, Kurosaki, the fuckin' wimp. Can't finish a job, can't let someone else finish his tattered, shitty job.

 

He can hear the padded, soft feel of Pantera stalking about on the edge of his conscious, a soft growl between her teeth. _I will keep you at bay for as long as I am able_ , she says, _aim for the forest_.

 

He is, beneath the concoction of chemicals that fuels his desperate, pathetic attempt at staying alive, grateful for all that she is, and that she is with him into his final drawings of breath.

 

* * *

 

Before the fall, the forest's tapered trees stretch wide above him. He is lucid for bouts, for when the rot sets in -- human, and he'd spit at it if he could. His wounds don't infect, but he reverts, slowly, each day. His strength diminishes, and Pantera's voice grows weaker, her pads a soft background noise now, her voice a crackling static. It fades in and out, sometimes so strong and sudden in his eardrum that he shakes with its force -- with her rage. It makes him curl up, and disturb his wounds, opening. Reiatsu bleeds out of him like he's been an animal gutted and readied for slaughter, he knows that.

 

The forest isn't what it used to be. Gillians and Adjuchas used to group together, huddle in packs and haunt the dense wooden floors for a couple of weeks, praying on the weaker, before devouring each other. Grimmjow knows that his presence is that of a distorted Arrancar. It shuns weaker packs naturally, the law of the king of the jungle, survival of the fittest -- but there are no sounds at all, but the blood rushing in his ears, pearlings of sweat dripping from the bridge of his nose, his own breathing -- his own agony.

 

He loathes, and somehow, twistedly -- he suspects that's part of his core -- appreciates the cruelty in Kurosaki letting him live, crawl away whilst he futilely attempts to hold the likes of Nnoitra at bay. The torment is unlike anything he's ever imagined.

 

He passes out once more, the world distorting, twisting something deep in his stomach.

 

* * *

 

After the fall.

 

There is nothing primal about his mind, he has not reverted from his form. He is weak, sure, and in this dimension between the Garganta and a physical world -- The Valley of Screams, he remembers, vaguely, the Shinigami entitle it, here he is nothing. He is no shape, and when he attempts to close his palm, count his fingers, unfold his spine from the curled position he knows he last was in -- there is a phantom ache of limbs and physicality that is not here.

 

He is conscious, but only of the pitch black that colors this dimension. There is no color, there is no light -- there is no one, though he knows, slithering along the edge of his waking thoughts, that he is not alone.

 

It is not after the fall. It is the fall.

 

* * *

 

Somewhere, he knows that some humans appreciate the soul as a manifestation of your personality, though it remains invisible. Grimmjow -- though he's beginning to lose the concept of that he is an entity, with a name, with memories and opinions and a body that _was_ once -- is beginning to understand how that chain of thought works. He knows, that he is someone.

 

He knows that he had a purpose.

 

He is thinking in past tense.

 

He knows, that he will never get out whole.

 

* * *

 

There is a vague image still remaining in what used to be his collected conscious.

 

Heat is raking across skin, and he would know what that experience was like, and whether it once belonged to a manifestation of his being, if he could render the feeling of the physicality of heat, and chill. Pain is a ghost, triumph skitters from him like a frightened animal. He is not primal. He has never once regressed. But instead, paralyzed. He is nothing. But this disjointed picture remains. There is something bright about it; a figure, a lightning bolt and both a slice of black across the sky and a pair of eyes quick beneath blood clumped eyelashes.

 

When he imagines this, it isn't animated; several stills of life, but it still manages to make him _feel_.

 

* * *

 

An ink spill of black. There is all there is to the Valley -- darkness.

 

* * *

 

"Aah, it seems that I have been successful in my endeavor, though I must say I was beginning to doubt."

 

There is a spark of recognition. It doesn't exist within the Valley. Somehow, the depths of the dimension has manifested itself in a sliver of light and a voice that is distantly familiar to -- him? Is he, at all?

 

"If you would be so kind as to agree to your immediate removal from this -- quite horrific place, Grimmjow-san."

 

He once had a purpose. Dimly, it resurfaces.

 

* * *

 

He wakes gasping, a foreign jackrabbit heart hammering in his chest, he gasps, the air imminently different to what he's grown used to. He wakes up to an empty room, traditionally Japanese, and on a futon, a loose sheet draped across his lower abdomen -- which is --

 

Grimmjow remembers, in flashes, in bouts, and grasps for a gaping wound spilling his guts that isn't there, which isn't a scar at all, and after a few moments of hitched breathing leans forward and heaves the little, watery contents of what he's apparently been fed per pure physical instinct. The air is thin, non-suffocating, and behind a light drape of curtain is a warm patch of light that he only remembers from what little time he's spent in the realm of humans.

 

He looks wildly around, feeling around himself, disoriented, unclothed -- Where is Pantera? He reaches deep into his mind, panic sharp and its sword intimate at the base of his throat, because it is _silent_ \-- he _can't_ \--

 

The air becomes thinner, thinner, it doesn't reach all the way down and throughout his lungs, his stomach seizes again, there is nothing to stop him from falling --

 

_Breathe, young one, breathe. I am here, and so are you._

 

Grimmjow's heart races, but now -- finally, it's been so long, but Pantera's swiping tail is there, soft, dense, against his conscious, awake.

 

"That really you?" He rasps, vocal chords protesting, "'Cause I swear, I'd have given you hell if you'd gone and abandoned my sorry ass."

 

Pantera's huff is as close to anything resembling emotions upset as he'll get from her, he knows. _Your tongue is as crude as ever, boy, mind it with me. Though it is -- heartening, after such a long period of solitude._

 

There is a knock on the door farthest into the room, a slide of bamboo seemingly warding off just another part of what is a larger room. Grimmjow sits up straighter, slowly, testing the curl of his fist, realizing that his sword probably isn't near enough for him to grapple for. He hasn't even tested his strength. It slides, and then again, a spark along his spine, a shiver of adrenaline, reminds him of that his body intimately knows the necessity of always being able to pull a punch.

 

"Ah, you're awake, Grimmjow-san!" Urahara Kisuke says, stepping barefoot with his hair swiped back from his eyes into the room.

 

* * *

 

It takes a certain amount of time before Grimmjow grows used to Urahara's style of combat, which irks him impossibly, makes him reckless and impatient and shooting up from his temporary resting place in half-release to chase the shōten owner around the underground training facility, face impasse and cane remaining strapped to his waist. Grimmjow halts, in the middle of the arena, tasting sweat in the corner of his mouth, and considers his surroundings. The chase is him unworthy, he stalks, he doesn't go about prancing after his grey as though a stag were him superior.

 

"Fuckin' pathetic," he mutters, "Oi, Urahara, quit runnin', will you? Or is that what you Shinigami do best, huh?"

 

Urahara steps out from behind a large rock, amicable, and studies Grimmjow with a head cocked and an expression that is equal amounts serene and superior. "I would advise you to think tactically, Grimmjow-san. You'll find that it often works to your advantage."

 

And at first it ticks something in him, a fuse, because nobody talks down to him -- but then he feels Pantera at the front of his mind, the touch of her psyche against his. _You were a cub long ago, not able to see beyond the red of your rage. Don't make mistakes because common sense temporarily begets you, Grimmjow, particularly not against such a dangerous opponent._ She twists in his mind, jaws agape with a yawn, and then continues prowling. She is the proudest of all creatures, Grimmjow thinks, the noblest.

 

He reigns himself in to fully sealed, breathes, and counts the yards around the arena, the amounts of possible holes in Urahara's defense, were he to use surprise, rather than open assault, as his first line of attack.

 

* * *

 

The first time Inoue and the big guy who'd cloyingly stuck to Kurosaki like a mindless pet in Hueco Mundo, comes around, it packs a punch straight in Grimmjow's ribs, and he doesn't even fucking know why.

 

He's sat on the porch of the shōten with an abrasive stone and Pantera reflecting the glitter of the sun when his periphery picks something innately familiar up, and he's about to stand and blink, ask questions later, when he sees the swipe of bright orange hair around the lot dividing bushes, and the air is suddenly too thin, too short, for his lungs.

 

Inoue rounds the corner, tall and laughing, and Grimmjow is inherently disagreeing with himself on what it was he just felt, slouching back down jerkingly. He picks the slip back up, and weighs it against the blade, pretending to not notice her quietening, Chad's imminently careful steps, though he really prowls forward like a feline predator. Grimmjow has to give the big guy that, he doesn't move like his looks.

 

Grimmjow looks up, the moment they come too close to ignore. Inoue surprises him then. He'd imagined her quietening of fright, recalling per automat her captivity in his care. But she stands tall, and for a moment, there is something hard there, and he knows that she'll bite venomously if he so much as steps close up to her reach. Then she softens, with a certain edge, but still smiles. "You look well," she notes, "That's a relief. Is Urahara-san around?"

 

He grunts, and points them inwards, without knowing how to appropriately respond.

 

* * *

 

He's coming off the rush of battle with Chad and Inoue, somehow able to respect both of them as somewhat dangerous opponents now, when he senses something, a lightning rod of speed, the thunder clapper of an assault, though he doesn't know from where it comes. Grimmjow twists wildly, quickly coming down and into stance with Pantera folded out in front of him, assuming a correct stance he's not previously ever known.

 

There's a gentle chiming of bells, a soft woosh of fabric, and then lips to the shell of his ear.

 

"Don't get cocky, boy," murmurs a female voice, which is there, and then all but gone, in the flash of a breath.

 

He spends a while chasing Shihōin Yoruichi around the arena, at first ticked annoyed, and then because no matter how hard he attempts, his Sonído is nowhere near her Shunpo, and odd fascination grabs a hold of him, burning. _This is Kurosaki's mentor_ , he realizes after a few laps, with burning lungs and straining muscles, seeing the woman lap him whilst doing a series of jumbled, acrobatic movements still graceful, that he's also seen Kurosaki do versions of.

 

He remembers his purpose, crystalline.

 

* * *

 

His nightmares are both in bright reds and the darkest blacks, varying from burning up from blood loss and sunny sticky heat, and being trapped between dimensions, feeling less than nothing -- a void, an abyss of dark, impossible to escape. At one point he is nothing, and the next, there's Kurosaki's chiming chain-embellished sword buried in his shoulder, ripping down, down, slicing his ribs as though they'd been water. Then he melts into Nnoitra's giant scythe, and Kurosaki is standing above him, robes clinging bloodied to his back, forearms scratched raw and shaking from holding the scythe back from cleaving Grimmjow clean in two.

 

The odd thing is that he spends every waking moment sitting in on conversations all about coming to Kurosaki's aid, and he doesn't protest. After months being honed -- he's just being brutally honest, which is a positive quality, as it happens -- by Yoruichi and Urahara, battling in formation and drawing up strategy based on enemy and battleground, he's getting used to thinking about Kurosaki as someone he's supposed to fight with, rather than against.

 

It's odd. And when he contemplates it, he doesn't fucking have to like it. Because in his dreams, he's still being ripped up into tiny little defeated pieces, and it rattles him far more than should happen. It's a delicate balance between accepting that you gotta turn some ugly corners to survive, and not give a shit, just fulfill this purpose that he's drawn up to himself. But if he's being true to himself, which he knows that Pantera will growl at pleased, rather than buff at him in exasperation, he knows that he's never been completely sure of that Kurosaki at the bottom of everything is his enemy.

 

He dreams, of the scar poking up beneath Kurosaki's black shihakushō, and the slice of the Getsuga, and being enveloped by tapered tree branches, reaching.

 

* * *

 

They relocate to Hueco Mundo for Urahara's testing scheme, whatever it is, Grimmjow hasn't a clue, and he doesn't care enough to find out yet. He takes a mouthful of the air that he's grown in, so inherently used to its setup and feel, that he immediately slings Pantera across his back and sets out to trek the desert. When Inoue calls after him, he waves a hand over his shoulder, dismissing. "Don't get your panties twisted, woman," he calls, "I ain't disappearing on ya."

 

He wanders, sand seeping into his shoes, gritty and harsh against the sole of his foot. Sometimes, a whirlwind of wind and desert whiffs up into his face, eyes, but he revels in the familiar feel of it. He doesn't truly know how far he goes, or how many runs he breaks into, intervals that clear his head void of unnecessary thought. He only knows that eventually, he comes to a point that he remembers; the tower, broken into large chunks, old blood faded on its already painted surface. Grimmjow walks into the zone of debris cautiously, as though something still remains haunted there. He knows he's being superstitious -- paranoid, on no merit. _If I knew the day'd come when I became a fucking pussy for nothin'_ , he thinks, and ducks beneath a jut of rock and steel poking like severed bone out of the building.

 

"S - 'S someone there?"

 

He's almost prepared to say goodbye to his sanity for good.

 

* * *

 

He comes back with an armful of Nelliel, a child, who pokes her head up from beneath the headlock he has her in to scream for someone to save her from the giant dummy who's captured her.

 

"You know who the fuck I am, so quit shoutin' like I'm gonna kill ya," Grimmjow snaps, annoyed, and lets her down so that she can run onto a surprised Inoue, whose waist becomes the permanent safe haven to the cursed third Espada. "Else I just might..."

 

It doesn't earn him any favors with the kid, and neither with the rest of the camp.

 

* * *

 

In Hueco Mundo, he is still king. He still knows the twists and turns of the dunes, the temperament of the desert, and the cold nights. He knows how it feels, the days preceding a chill, and how it melts away. The traps to catching rattlesnake hollows, and how to repulse stronger presences of Adjuchas with his reiatsu alone. They match out; Yoruichi bears down on him, his continued superior in the context of battle, in martial arts, in every way of the battle except for brute strength. Urahara is seldom seen, slipping in and out of the tent housing a nest of tentacle cables and a large, flickering screen. It looks like a temporary setup of Szayel's lab, and it creeps him the fuck out, and he doesn't go there, except for when he absolutely has to.

 

One day Nelliel emerges from the tent, tall, proud, a long plait of hair slung across one grown shoulder. She is smiling victoriously, serenely. Grimmjow is far from an expert, but apart from her happiness, he sees how Inoue greets Nelliel happily, but downcast. He decides to not become involved with womanly issues, however. He snorts at the third Espada, and attempts to round kick some humility into her. She sidesteps, gracefully, her palm coming up to grip with iron around his ankle.

 

"That shouldn't be how you treat your betters, Sexta," she says, before pushing him back into a position where he has no choice but to fall backwards, just neatly saving himself from a skull fracture based on a certain amount of agility of the back and arms. He rises quickly, with a _tche_ , and dusts himself off.

 

"Had to see if ya still had it in ya, didn't I?" He smirks. Nelliel shakes her head, but her lips are drawn, canted upwards, and it almost looks as though she's imagining smiling.

 

Truth is, it isn't what he expects, but he doesn't comment, not sure exactly of what he'd say.

 

* * *

 

And then, the day comes when he is out training with Nelliel, the two of them alone for the first time in months, adapting the best to waiting in Hueco Mundo. He's resuming his stance to continue fighting, when the sky moans, and the world starts to shake apart. Nelliel is standing atop a jutting cliff, and has dodged a blast of Grimmjow's Cero, when the rock suddenly cracks down the middle, and thunder erupts from the ground. Grimmjow snaps up from where he's crouched. "Nel! Get the fuck down here!"

 

She doesn't need to be told twice, finding purchase on a piece of the cliff still steady, and vaults down into the sand that is still just barely trickling into the newly formed gap, the yawning mouth not yet large enough to swallow them whole lest they make a run for it. Grimmjow sheathes Pantera, pushes the sheathe back on his hip, and sets off in a light Sonído, careful not to touch the ground lest he feels that it's steady.

 

They trek in silence, knowing that it is time, when they approach the edge of the forest, dense and dark, thunder on the spotless sky behind them, it'll be a matter of time before they're called into Soul Society.

 

Nelliel comes up to sidle with him, as they breach the forest's border. They step over large roots, twisted and raking across the pine floor. He breathes sedge and thick leaf crowns, feels at the edge of his mind Gillians scatter for their presences. They're high ranking Espada, they're invincible, in these woods.

 

"We're almost there," Nelliel comments, and steps up on a fallen trunk, thick and bowing across a sink in the landscape. She nimbly balances out onto the ledge, surveying the ground beneath them. Grimmjow snorts. "Whatever. Don't make a big deal outta it. Might get cut down as soon as we step into Shinigami territory."

 

Nelliel returns. Her eyes green, unfathomable, thick lashes casting shadows down her scratched cheeks. "Ichigo is there," she says. Says it like it means something. Like he's their savior. Like it's not them coming to save Kurosaki's sorry ass.

 

"Yeah, he is," Grimmjow replies, and slides down the soft slope. That purpose he'd supposedly staked his life on, and out in, is beginning to look like a deal not worth taking.

 

* * *

 

Kurosaki is a whirl of black cloth and black power, bright eyes, sharp mouth. It tugs at Grimmjow, closer, closer, but they're raking swords screeching against each other, and the spark of adrenaline down Grimmjow's spine is -- it's a tour de force of emotions fucking him up. It's untitled, because he hasn't a right clue what to do with it. He sees Kurosaki smile, and he sees him panting, losing blood, crouched before Inoue and Nelliel protective. He sees him push Nnoitra off of himself, and he sees, through a haze that is either dream or a pain that he cannot physically recall from the dredge of his memories, him be cut down by Nnoitra whose mouth is open cruelly, tongue blood red and black.

 

He spirals, into darkness, caged by the long fingers of tree branches, coming to wrap around him. It's either secure, or choking.

 

Kurosaki is standing above him, casting shadows by the lick of sun that's obscured by the broad of his shoulders, Zangetsu in one hand, the sword pointing lazily into the ground. His cheek is ripped up, bleeding thinly, and a chip of painted bone slips from the slick of his hair, matted with blood and caked dirt. It hits the ground, echoing, morbidly forming half a mouth full of gaping skeletal molars.

 

He wakes to Nelliel gently pushing at his shoulder. "It is time," she murmurs, speaking hushedly. He gets up, wordlessly, and draws up the black abyss of a Garganta in the thin air of dawn, suppressing a shiver apparent on his bare arms at stepping through and into nothing.

 

* * *

 

"Open up," Comes Yoruichi's muffled voice, and Grimmjow has to squint into the bright white light of day as the air rips, sucks, and opens to a landscape torn and tattered, Soul Society's bleached scenery in shreds and bits. But it isn't what catches his attention, nor what rattles in his throat. He knows it isn't noticeable, but the pang and quickening of breath the moment he sees Kurosaki stand tall and shocked as a counterweight to the paleness of this world is a starch contrast to anything he ever feels.

 

"Grimmjow -- " Kurosaki breathes, eyes wide, and Grimmjow can't help it, the sheer fucking push of it, he grins, wildly, reaching for Pantera, his heart quickening. "It's been fuckin' forever, Kurosaki," he says, and steps out of the portal with a hand on the hilt and one rigid half behind himself, as if to push for leverage in the air. "How many years has it been?"

 

Kurosaki looks as if he wants to recite the number, scrabble to hold onto something, when in truth Grimmjow hears the race and the speed of his pulse, and sees his fingers twitch towards reaching for Zangetsu. He rakes his eyes over the Shinigami, looking bruised but not beaten, sees the scar still poke up beneath his shihakushō, and a few new additions, pale lines like pearl criss crossing his face.

 

And Grimmjow halts.

 

He sidesteps for Nelliel, who throws herself out of the Garganta just as Grimmjow has touched solid ground, and barrels for Ichigo. It's a moment, just a moment, that he needs, to drop his sword hand towards the ground, and catch himself, just as the air is kicked out of him. Nelliel has knocked Kurosaki to the ground, babbling with joy seldom seen on her, to him, who's attempting to crawl up and onto his elbows.

 

Grimmjow finds himself staring, like he's fucking enthralled, unable to turn away, be flippant rather than -- this. He's still not sure why this happens, like Kurosaki just inspires bouts of emotions in everyone, because when he's finally torn himself from the sight of Nelliel and the Shinigami on the ground, not one in their present formation hasn't lightened up like fucking candles at his presence. Him, smiling half, gently pushing a top-ranked Espada off of him and getting slowly to his feet.

 

He meets Yoruichi's gaze. It tells him jack shit, except for the canine poking out from her upper lip in a slant of a smile. It's quick and away, before she reverts to serious. They're in the midst of a war, after all. Grimmjow can't say no to that, thankful, somewhere, where he doesn't really go, for an opportunity to plot someone's unfortunate death rather than contemplate the life and times of his emotional capacity.

 

* * *

 

Kurosaki wanders the tiny cube of black matter when history hour is over, pulling up pathways in the walls -- wherever they start and end -- for a few laps. Grimmjow watches him slowly walk about, and merely raises an eyebrow when the Shinigami glances over, and approaches.

 

"You sure you wanna come so close?" Grimmjow asks, lazily kicking out a foot to stretch before him. Kurosaki shrugs.

 

"You gonna try anything?"

 

"You won't know 'til you're pinned down by the throat over there," he waves towards the far end of the cube, and lets three fingers swipe Pantera's hilt. Kurosaki doesn't skitter, and Grimmjow isn't sure whether he expected him to, or not. He chuckles. "Thought you were all about teamwork, Kurosaki. We're on the same team now, ain't we?"

 

And despite -- everything, Kurosaki sits down, lithe, the stretch of a cat, a few feet from Grimmjow. He looks unimpressed, pressing a _tch_ between his teeth. "You're an asshole, like always," he comments. "I don't trust you as far as I can throw you, until you show me you've earned it."

 

"Psht, like I gotta earn anything from you, dipshit."

 

Kurosaki looks like he's holding himself back for a moment, reining something that he physically wants to do, and worries his jaw. His eyes flick to Grimmjow's, intent, quick beneath eyelashes that are discolored from chalk and dust, but not blood. Grimmjow knows he's verging on staring. Then Kurosaki smiles, a small thing unfolding on the lower part of his face. "You'll earn it after I've beaten you, again, and you accept that. That's after we've finished all of this shit. _We_."

 

 _We_. It's an expletive, loud, telling. Grimmjow frowns, contrasting the breath lodging in his lungs, half excited, half -- he can't name it. "Whatever," he consents, shrugging. He catches Kurosaki's widening smile as he looks away. _Fucker_ , he thinks, _got his head screwed way off_. 

 

The box, which has moved so steadily it hasn't made notice that it's descended, halts, buzzing mid-air. He's up per animalistic instinct, standing just at Kurosaki's shoulder. Pantera growls, ready to pounce, teeth like razors bared. Grimmjow puts a palm, steady, on the hilt of his zanpakutō.

 

* * *

  

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, grimmjow's a shit, but he's also hard down for ichigo, and maybe has progressed a bit as a character (i can pretend it happened, at least). he's also grouchy, but not impossible, and i feel like almost dying (probs not how i've written it, but whatever) could've done him some good, and given him a bit of humility. cue new friends, and his better half telling him not to fuck around. maybe a series? i've missed this fandom, ngl.


End file.
